ambaradan/markchad

Custom configuration of NvChad for Markdown code

markchad

Objective

Create a configuration of NvChad dedicated to writing documentation with Markdown code by implementing the following features.

• Automatically set Neovim options for Markdown files
• Highlighting Markdown tags in the buffer
• Providing a zen mode for document editing

Introduction

Nvchad is a custom configuration of Neovim that provides out of the box an IDE for Lua code development, its modularity however allows useful features for any type of language to be implemented in the configuration. This project intends to create a version of the NvChad configuration with the best solutions for the Markdown language provided by Neovim plugins and settings. There are also features useful for project management both in terms of workspace management (file manager, session manager) and git repository management.

Requirements

The configuration requires the same pre-requisites needed for its use as running a standard installation of NvChad with the addition of the sqlite packages for storing strings to be copied with yank.nvim and pandoc for aligning markdown tables.

Features

• Configuration: all configurations of the additional plugins have been written with great care to make them independent of each other, this allows them to be disabled when needed by means of the Plugin Spec enabled = false/true of lazy.nvim present in all configuration files. Keyboard keys to invoke the various features have been included in the configuration files and converted where possible to the lazy style format
• UI - Interface: some changes were made to the layout strategy of Telescope in order to have a more modern and functional interface, themes (dropdown and ivy) were also used for the pickers provided by default and for those inserted by additional plugins. No changes have been made to the themes provided by NvChad, this is to allow you to use it according to your own aesthetic tastes. Not all themes offer a rich display for highlights, and the default onedark theme was used for graphic development.
• Editor: the section of plugins that provide functionality to the editor have been supplemented with a git repository manager a session manager that enables faster project management and other small utilities to improve workflow.
• Markdown: several features have been included for writing Markdown documentation including a preview of the document in the browser, highlighting in the buffer of markdown tags, conversion by keyboard keys of attributes to text, and more.

Test installation

For its installation, it is recommended to start with a test one using the NVIM_APPNAME variable provided by Neovim. Using this variable allows you to run an instance of Neovim with the markchad configuration completely independent of the current system configuration found in .config/nvim. To run the installation, type:

git clone https://github.com/ambaradan/markchad.git ~/.config/markchad && NVIM_APPNAME=markchad nvim

The command clones the installation in ~/.config/markchad/ and starts nvim with the settings from that path, installs all set plugins and parsers, when finished all that remains is to install the LSP set with :MasonInstallAll.

The neovim instance creates two folders where to hold the additional files of the installation, in particular the folder ~/.local/share/markchad/ will be created where to save plugins (lazy) and LSP components (mason) and the folder ~/.cache/markchad/ for temporary files.

Starting the installation

To keep the installation independent of the system installation, its post-installation startup must also be done using the NVIM_APPNAME variable, so neovim will initialize the instance with the paths described above, to start it type:

NVIM_APPNAME=markchad nvim

NOTE: This project was developed using the Rocky Linux distribution and should therefore run on all derived RHEL distributions, for instructions on package installation and configurations on another Linux system please refer to the relevant documentations.

Removal

For complete deletion of the installation, simply remove the folders created by the installation:

rm -rf ~/.config/markchad/
rm -rf ~/.cache/markchad/
rm -rf ~/.local/share/markchad/

Acknowledgements

A big thank you goes to Siduck, the main developer, and to all those who contributed to the creation of NvChad, without them this project could not exist. A big thank you also goes to all the developers of the plugins used in this setup for sharing their knowledge.